Strong Women

Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

David Wallace

Fluent and fascinating account of the shocking and dangerous lives - and complex textual afterlives - of four 'strong women': Dorothea of Montau, Margery Kempe of Lynn, Mary Ward Yorkshire, and Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane

Impressive historical reach, spanning 14th to the 17th centuries

Generously illustrated

Strong Women

Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

David Wallace

Description

It takes a strong woman to secure bookish remembrance in future times; to see her life becoming a life. David Wallace explores the lives of four Catholic women - Dorothea of Montau (1347-1394) and Margery Kempe of Lynn (c. 1373-c. 1440); Mary Ward of Yorkshire (1585-1645) and Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane (c. 1585-1639) and and the fate of their writings. All four shock, surprise, and court historical danger. Dorothea of Montau punishes her body and spends all day in church; eight of her nine neglected children die. Kempe, mother of fourteen, empties whole churches with a piercing cry learned at Jerusalem. Ward, living holily but un-immured, is denounced as an Amazon, a chattering hussy, an Apostolic Virago, and a galloping girl. Cary, having left her husband
torturing Catholics in Dublin castle, converts to Roman Catholicism in Irish stables in London. Each of these women is mulier fortis, a strong woman: had she been otherwise, Wallace argues, her life would never have been written. The earliest texts of these lives are mostly near-contemporaneous with the women they represent, but their public reappearances have been partial and episodic, with their own complex histories. The lives of these strong women continue to be rewritten long after this premodern period. Incipient European war determines what Kempe must represent between her first discovery in 1934 and full publication in 1940. Dorothea of Montau, first promoted to counter eastern paganism, becomes a bastion against Bolshevism in the 1930s; her cult's meaning is fought out
between Gunter Grass and Josef Ratzinger. Cary's Catholic daughters, Benedictine nuns, must write of their mother as if she were a saint. Ward's work is not yet done: her followers, having won the right not to be enclosed, must now enter the closed spaces of Roman clerical power.

Strong Women

Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

David Wallace

Author Information

David Wallace studied for a BA (1976) in English and Related Literature at York and for a Ph.D. at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. Following a Research Fellowship at Cambridge (1981-3) and a Mellon Fellowship at Stanford (1984-5), he taught at the University of Texas at Austin (1985-91) and then at the University of Minnesota, where he was Professor of English and Frenzel Chair in Liberal Arts (1991-6). He has been Judith Rodin Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania since 1996, with stints as Visiting Professor at King's College, Cambridge, Melbourne University, Princeton University, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He has done extensive work for BBC radio, with documentary features on Bede, Malory, Margery Kempe, and John Leland. He is currently
editing what will be the first literary history of Europe, 1348-1418, for OUP: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/regeneration/

Strong Women

Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

David Wallace

Reviews and Awards

"Few books in this field are so richly and widely erudite, yet such irresistible page-turners. Wallace's prose sparkles (at one point he translates lunatica di poco cervello as "a bear of little brain" [241]), making Strong Women a must not just for church historians and literary scholars, but for anyone who enjoys a rollicking good read." --Speculum

"[A] fascinating series of readings of four Catholic women's lives/lives, pre- and post-Reformation. Scholars of medieval and Reformation studies, and any general reader of women and religion, travel, and European culture would learn much from this book...It will shape the field for years to come."--Recusant History

"Readers in Reformation and Counter-Reformation history will enjoy grappling with Wallace's provocative introductory statements about the male domination of Reformation studies...There is much of interest in this book for literary scholars as well as historians. It will shape the field for years to come." --Recusant History

"Wallace's groundbreaking and fascinating work will be of interest to feminist scholars, historians, and all those concerned with the premodern female experience, and the evolution of Catholicism in England and Europe." --Renaissance Quarterly

Strong Women

Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

David Wallace

From Our Blog

By David Wallace
Jewish and Christian traditions alike praise the strong woman, a colossus of work and ingenuity who, according to Proverbs 31, rises early and prepares food, plants vineyards, conveyances land, feeds the poor, manufactures and sells linen garments, weaves tapestries, and speaks wisdom.